KSP Weekly: Planum Australe
Welcome to KSP Weekly! Recently, a team of researchers from the National Institute of Astrophysics (INAF) in Rome presented evidence of a vast subglacial liquid water reservoir on Mars’ South Pole.
The team, led by Dr Roberto Orosei used data collected by a radar instrument, the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding (MARSIS), on board ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft.
The data showed that there was a source of liquid water spanning about 20 kilometers across in a region called Planum Australe, about 1.5 kilometers below the surface. It was detected by sending 29 sets of radar pulses under the surface, with reflections showing a radar signal almost identical to that from lakes of liquid water found beneath the ice of Antarctica and Greenland on Earth, heavily suggesting it is liquid water.
The exact nature of the water is unclear though. The characteristics of this suspected water are complicated by the conditions it is in. On Earth, subglacial lakes reach temperatures of about -60°C. But the intense pressure of the ice above lowers the melting point of the water, to the point where it exists as a liquid in large freshwater lakes. However, under this region on Mars, it’s thought the temperatures drop to about -68°C. In order for the water to remain liquid here, it is probably full of salts like magnesium, calcium, and sodium.
On Earth, a handful of subglacial lakes have been drilled into and we have found bacteria within them, so this discovery is considered as a major step in the hopes of finding past or present life on Mars.
A few years ago, scientists found evidence for water trickling on the surface, known as recurring slope lineae (RSL). However, these features are short-lived, with the water quickly evaporating in the low-pressure environment on the Martian surface.
It’s long been theorized, though, that there may be more stable bodies of liquid beneath the surface, as evidenced in this research. To answer this, researchers hope to use more data from Mars Express over the next years.
Although there is still much to learn and an actual drilling operation is still out of our reach, this is a very exciting discovery. On Earth, liquid water almost always means life. Coupled with the recent discovery of the building blocks of life on Mars, we might end up finding that life is much more common than we thought in the universe.
[Development news start here]
Yesterday we released Patch 1.4.5 and with it, various improvements and bug fixes for both the base game and the expansion have been included. For instance, we have incorporated a quality-of-life feature that lets you dismiss pop-up dialogs with the ESC button. We also fixed several issues regarding the Steam Workshop in-game incorporation, and included a subscribe/unsubscribe button to the Mission Play dialog for Steam shared files on the Community tab for your convenience. Click here to see the full release notes.
In addition to all the work that even a small release like 1.4.5 entails, we have kept ourselves occupied with other exciting tasks. KSP continues to be a great platform to be improved upon and we are dedicated to continue providing updates to the game and making it the best experience possible for all of our players. We will continue to keep our players updated on upcoming developments here on KSP Weekly.
Remember that you can also share and download missions on Curse, KerbalX, the KSP Forum and the KSP Steam Workshop.
That’s it for this week. Be sure to join us on our official forums, and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and Facebook. Stay tuned for more exciting and upcoming news and development updates!
(n.d.). Retrieved from https://marsed.asu.edu/mep/ice/polar-caps/planum-australe
Anderson, G. (2015, September 28). NASA Confirms Evidence That Liquid Water Flows on Today's Mars. Retrieved from https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-confirms-evidence-that-liquid-water-flows-on-today-s-mars
Bartels, M. (2018, July 25). Mars' South Pole May Hide a Large Underground Lake. Retrieved from https://www.space.com/41272-mars-liquid-water-below-ice-cap.html
E. (n.d.). Mars Express. Retrieved from https://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Mars_Express
O`Callaghan, J. (2018, July 26). A Huge Lake Of Liquid Water Has Been Found On Mars. Retrieved from http://www.iflscience.com/space/weve-finally-found-actual-liquid-water-on-mars/all/
Orosei, R., Lauro, S. E., Pettinelli, E., Cicchetti, A., Coradini, M., Cosciotti, B., . . . Seu, R. (2018, July 25). Radar evidence of subglacial liquid water on Mars. Retrieved from http://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2018/07/24/science.aar7268
